I love being a stay at home mom. Lest anyone think this is a complaint or a wish for a change or a regret - no, a thousand times over. I love being home with my kids. I would never want to do it any other way. I know how blessed we are that I can do this, and I do not take it for granted.
But it is hard for me some days.
Some days are idyllic...totally the stuff of successful, put together, soccer mommies everywhere. Cute kids, telling me cute stories, sweaty arms around my neck, perfectly timed naps and chocolate in the cupboard (hidden, because...five kids...but there). Dance parties, craft time that they actually sit through and have an end product as planned, ABC songs, learning games....ahhhhh....some days are bliss.
But some days...I struggle. Hard.
And at the root of that struggle is that I fail. Every day. At something.
I am not someone that shrugs off a failure as a first attempt, keep on at it Einstein. I am a dweller of mistakes, a brooder, a beat-up-myself-mentally-until-i-cry-in-the-shower-er. And being a stay at home mom sets me up for this shit every. single. day. I cannot achieve perfection, no matter how hard I try. And on hard days, this drums in my head in all the places where I used to think adult thoughts before the hardest thing I had to think about was how many parts move on a school bus and how to set them to music.
If I take my kids out for the day, my house does not get cleaned. If I stay home and clean my house all day, my kids don't get out for any stimulation and drive me insane about five o'clock. Jack gives me the 'eye' when the house is a mess and he gives me the 'eye' when I don't take the kids out. I usually give him the 'eye' back and we don't talk about it. No way to win this one. Fail.
If I plan a big craft activity, my kids want nothing to do with it. If I plan a free day, they are bored and on me all day long. If I put twenty new fun learning apps on the Kindles, my four year old will whine for eight hours about how he wants to play the shooting game Dad let him play. My two year old will cry for the 'truck' song with no more specifics until I discover that she wants me to play the ABC song, but sing the word 'truck' in place of every letter. That one especially feels like a set up. I am amazed that I broke the code at all. And if feels like a win, until she cries that I need to kiss her invisible boo-boo...that I cannot find.
I can have all the laundry 100% done and the kitchen sparkling and every floor vacuumed and there is still dust. I can dust the obvious spots but there is still a gazillion spots where dust sits and taunts me. OK, maybe not a gazillion. But I stopped typing to go count - and I have ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO picture frames...on the first floor alone. I was too depressed to climb the stairs and count those ones. How in the hell am I supposed to keep a hundred and forty two picture frames windexed and dusted on a constant basis??? It is impossible. Unless I fail at laundry and dishes and floors and washing walls. Or I could win at dusting, but fail at soap scum showers and crusty ovens. There is always something. My house will never be actually, fully clean. Fail.
I really love to cook and I try hard at this one. Trying to feed my family healthy and on budget. Trying to balance treats and veggies. Having family dinners together. But even here I fail. My kids never have hot breakfast - unless Jack makes it. I don't function well at seven in the morning. Fail. My kids eat boxed mac n' cheese. Not the organic kind. The 3/$1 Meijer kind. With all the food dyes. They love it. And if I have it in the cupboard, my teenagers will make themselves lunch sometimes. I tried making homemade healthy(er) mac n cheese. No one liked it. Fail. If I plan a family dinner in my brain, a sports practice or meeting will inevitably switch times and tank my agenda. Fail. I give my kids too much chocolate milk, because it stops them from screaming how mean I am and how evil other beverages are - which leads to over full bellies that won't eat meals. Fail. We eat fast food twice a week. Every Sunday and at least one more day where a swim lesson or baseball practice has upset my apple cart. So many fails.
Toss in being a good wife, taking time to connect with extended family, budgeting and bill paying, trying to write once in a blue moon to convince myself I can still spell five letter words, trying to be more involved in our church and our community, homework, and the very special hell that is potty training....and I fail constantly. I can NEVER do these all well. Not at the same time. So I fail at something every single day. And that failure rattles around in my brain while I try to adjust to do better. Which sometimes works and sometimes goes down in flames. And I struggle with giving myself grace in this adventure. I pray on it, try to actively remind myself that this is just the journey, that no one is perfect.
As you can see, I still have a ways to go.
